Best in Show: Sundance, making up Ana de Armas, and the first great rom-com
MIA This week on Best in Show: the big winners at Sundance, we talk hair and makeup with the artists behind two wildly divisive old Hollywood movies from the past year. And speaking of that golden era, we revisit the first film to win the Big Five at the Oscars.
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MIA Hi and welcome to Best in Show, a limited podcast series brought to you by The Letterboxd Show. I am Mia Vicino, the West Coast Editor at Letterboxd and Best in Show is all about award season: the noms and gongs, the snubs and surprises, the Letterboxd data, the contenders and the insiders. It’s all in service of doing what we always do here at Letterboxd—celebrate cinema. And here to celebrate cinema with me are my Best in Show besties, Hollywood veteran and our editorial producer Brian Formo.
BRIAN Hi.
MIA And our Editor–in-chief, Gemma Gracewood.
GEMMA Hello!
MIA Also on our team outside and the broadcast van with their hot dogs and their hot cocoa are our resident Fact Finder, Jack’s Facts and the man with the tape deck himself, our editor Slim. Thank you to these silent gents. Soon we’ll be talking to Jaime Leigh McIntosh and Tina Roesler Kerwin, who have worked very closely with Oscar nominee Ana de Armas, about the craft of hair and makeup. But first up, this week’s news! So this show is necessarily somewhat stuck in the past as we look at the films from the last year that are up for this season’s awards. But we’ve all just finished up a marathon of new movie-watching at the Sundance Film Festival. It is the first big fest of the year, the first look at a fresh batch of films from a fresh batch of filmmakers, a fascinating indicator of what’s to come not just in of the films themselves, but also the health of the industry, who’s buying what the artists to watch and so on and so forth. So, Brian, our industry insider, gives us the lowdown about this festival that is named after Robert Redford’s iconic [Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid] and has been taking place in the snowy mountains of Utah since 1978.
BRIAN Well, let’s not leave the other outlier out of that. I am just going to toot my own horn and say that I met Butch Cassidy himself once, the Paul Newman at a different ski resort and Sun Valley Idaho near where I grew up. So they’re all in that region they all love. They all love the Mountain West.
GEMMA I had a salad. I had a salad with Paul Newman’s salad dressing on it once. Does that count? That counts?
MIA That’s about the equivalent of Brian’s experience. Yeah.
BRIAN But since I was there in Park City with our beloved Flynn slicker who everyone is asking for jobs on our Instagram, I will let two filmmakers that we spoke to speak to the importance of Robert Redford’s Independent Film Festival sensation about how it can launch filmmakers and films into a whole other strata spheres. And not surprisingly, they’re both talking about money first, John Carney, who has had three films premiered at Sundance once, that’s the title Once, Sing Street, and this year’s Flora and Son, let’s hear from John Carney.
JOHN The festival that has given me a career to be honest, you know, you can work as a filmmaker in Ireland, and you can be, you know, reasonably successful, but you can, it’s hard to make a living. And when I made it once, and it was doing well in Ireland, I still couldn’t afford to pay my rent. And when I came to Sundance, we got a deal. And we really got into the film industry. And I felt like a proper filmmaker. And I felt like I was, you know, there was money to finance my films a little bit. And so it really launched me in of being able to put my kids through school and be a filmmaker at the same time, and to be able to afford to put bread on the table through the thing I loved, which is filmmaking. So I can’t overstate how important Sundance has been for me.
BRIAN And one of the stars of Florin sun. Joseph Gordon Levitt, he also weighed in now a little background so Gordon Levitt starred in (500) Days of Summer that premiered at the 25th annual Sundance Film Festival. It became one of the biggest box office hits that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, earning $61 million off its $7 million budget. Sundance is sort of a hallowed ground, a sacred place that stands for the notion that there’s more to movies than show business. It doesn’t tie the knot. You know, when Robert Redford founded Sundance, it was to find a place for artists who didn’t necessarily fit into the buckets of commercial Hollywood, but still had something important to say. And to me, this is often forgotten. Even more so now that you know Silicon Valley is running Hollywood, and everything is so data driven and quantized and by On numbers and view counts and likes and follows and algorithms, there’s something more than that. There’s something that goes back farther than that farther than Hollywood farther than show business farther than money farther than numbers, human beings telling stories is what makes us human. It makes us different from other animals. And Sundance to me is the place that’s like, yes. And that’s what movies can be about. Now, John and Joseph are both correct. However, there’s obviously capitalism at Sundance. Joseph, you know, he’s, he’s speaking more about the artistic sentiment. But Sundance is famous for his bidding wars. So there was a bidding war on the movie that they were there to promote. Funny enough. So for instance, Apple, one of those tech giants even though Joseph Gordon Levitt said, Tech has taken over too much of this industry. Well, they did buy his movie. It was an undisclosed sum, but it reportedly in the $20 million range for flora and son.
GEMMA Hmm, that’s interesting, but it kind of makes sense that it will be Apple. I guess I’m thinking about how Eve Hewson, who's also a flora and son, is an apple's brilliant bed sisters series, which I loved. And not to mention, there’s a JGL Joseph Gordon Levitt connection with Apple through his series, Mr. Coleman. And there’s also a strong connection between John Carney’s movies, and the Oscars, and the vectors. So this is, you know, a big indicator of, of possibly next year’s award season, but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.
BRIAN I also want to go back a little bit because I, oh, I gave some box office numbers. I want to quiz you guys and also give our listeners a little bit of insight and like how important this industry can be in watching movies.
GEMMA I want to become a bidding person because 61 Hey, enough, 7 million is it those are? Those are some amazing odds.
BRIAN So there are two films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival that have grossed more than $100 million. Hint, they’re both horror movies. And they both launched new sub genres of horror.
GEMMA So what do you think? Is it a subgenre of horror?
MIA I have a guest I have a guest I have a guess. Is one of them The Blair Witch Project? Yes,
BRIAN that is one made $140 million. But there’s another one that made it more; it's the highest grossing Sundance ever at 176.
MIA Gemma, you take this one.
GEMMA I’m kind of like I might unlike is it. Esther, or is it Jordan Peele? That’s the realm I’m in.
BRIAN So you’re in the right realm? Toward the end of it. Ah, okay. So
GEMMA Is it Get Out Brian. It is not, is it?
BRIAN Yes. The new sub genres like Jordan Peele with the social thriller, which everyone is making social thrillers right after Get Out. And then everyone was making found footage horror movies after a player which project so there There you go. It’s really interesting.
MIA Okay, Brian, I think it’s very cool that you and Flynn were at Sundance and I’m not at all jealous. Haha. But um, did you bring us back a beanie or something? Some type of souvenir?
GEMMA Yeah, we thought Mitch.
BRIAN Well, I’d like to say that I brought back a BD, but I actually left my own beanie in the theater. I also left a hat in the theater. So like, there’s so many, there’s so much. It’s so frickin cold. You put on all these layers. And then when you get in your seat, you’re basically you have your whole shopping bag full of your own stuff. And I just kept losing the stuff that went on in my head, which actually would have let down Nicole Holofcener who literally brought up what she wanted people to take away from the theater right here. Their coats, their gum, their garbage. People just leave garbage on the ground,
MIA including their vape pen they didn’t notice as missing until they leave the theater and then they have to shamefully call the theater and ask if they found a vape pen but a movie is playing so they can’t look so you just have to stand outside for two hours waiting pathetically ha ha ha ha ha.
BRIAN Mia. You’re making a joke but I had to wait for you once while you waited to get your vape pen back from The Fabelmans screening we went to together.
MIA Brian had to stand outside while he fiddled around in the seats looking for my vape pen it can happen to anyone
GEMMA look we’re gonna move on. We need a whole other podcast or some kind of Reddit thread for bed cinema stories but not this year because we’re all trying to save cinema I think so. In what kinds of ways do we think Sundancers 2023 lineup and its industry activity will save cinema this year other than of course, giving us the lasting image of friends Rogowski in a sea through crocheted pale green sweaters. Thanks very much to ages. More to the point of this show. How do you stand out says awards impact the rest of the year and move is because the Sundance two Oscars pipeline is so strong. There’s a long history of Sundance ed films and filmmakers getting to the Oscars, isn’t there?
MIA Yes. Well, we have some facts from Jack on that. 20 narrative features ed by Sundance have been Oscar Best Picture nominees over the past 40 years. And on the documentary front, Sundance, Doc’s have won seven teen Best Documentary trophies. So for the coming Academy Awards, the category has two nominees, All That Breathes and Navalny that both won prizes at Sundance 2022. Brian, do you have more insider Intel for us?
BRIAN Yeah, Sunday, it’s had a pretty big run of importance with Oscar primarily between the years of 2000 with You Can Count On Me all the way up through 2014 with Whiplash, but it’s been in a kind of a weird lurch for a couple of years in between then and now. So I would say that it’s been pretty dormant from Oscar specific importance for a few reasons. First, there’s the hostile takeover of IP driven cinema. There’s also the streaming wars, which ramped up the bidding wars, Sundance always had bidding wars, but once you had tech giant spending money, a lot of theatrical companies or distributors started to like pull back and it really kind of changed the space for a while one of the last major theatrical giant purchases came in 2016, which was $18 million spent on The Birth of a Nation, which then became a huge hot button issue due to rape allegations that resurfaced against the film’s director and star Nate Parker. So there were some hesitant years at Sundance, especially for theatrical and indie films in general being struggling in the theatrical space. And so streaming streaming has been basically mostly what has been happening here. The pandemic however, when larger theatrical films were shelved, allowed a few Sundance pictures to recapture the spotlight. So Promising Young Woman, one Best Original Screenplay. During the 2021 Oscars, machinery also won best ing actress and both those films premiered at Sundance Film Festival. That was the last in person one before this year. So flash forward to the start of 2021 Sundance is still not in person, CODA and Summer of Soul won the biggest Sundance awards CODA won grand jury, directing audience, and ensemble.
GEMMA I that and I having watched Kodak during that Sundance and gone, huh, nice movie, and then seeing it at all these awards and I think it really it’s a great film, but I think it really drove home. the psyche of the times given that we were deep, deep, deep and locked down and, you know, with a vaccine, only just starting to appear on the horizon. It was a you know, epsilon absolute crowd pleaser.
BRIAN Speaking of only appearing on the horizon, I mean, it seems like the CODA was like two years ago, but we’re not even a year removed from when it won best picture at the Oscars. So like time has been crawling along that line. But it’s a historical end because not only does it bring Sundance back into the best picture discussion, but it is obviously the first streamer to win Best Picture. Despite Oscar's constant flirtation with Netflix, they ended up marrying Apple instead. And CODA ’s leading star Amelia Jones was back at this year’s Sundance with Cat Person actually, it was her first time at Sundance i She’ll tell you, Flynn asked her what it was like to attend it in person one year after that victory.
I mean, it felt so nice because CODA was online. So although I kind of have been to Sundance before, I actually hadn't been to Sundance before. So yeah, it’s so nice. And I had two movies. So I feel very, very, very lucky. And I’m having so much fun. It’s such an amazing festival
GEMMA friend Amelia mentioned that she was there for two films, Cat Person and also theory land. And actually, she had three films at Sundance this year because they played Coda for all the people who were there in person as I, you know, kind of celebrated its success last year. So that was a nice gesture. And it’s not only the Oscars that Sundance has a pipeline to from 2020 two’s lineup, or that breeds is also up for an indie Spirit Award and match, along with other films from last year’s Sundance, Nanny, Palm Trees and Power lines. My favorite, my darling Leonor Will Never Die. So that’s cool. Yeah, it’s really interesting to see how this is the beginning of a whole new landscape of awards and, you know, audience success.
MIA Oh, yeah, absolutely. So let’s look at who took the Sundance awards home this year, shall we? There are many many awards, so we will highlight a few jurors. An audience words, but the full list of winners are in a link in the Episode Notes. Playwright Jeremy o Harris. Never Rarely Sometimes director Eliza hitmen and CODA’s Marlee Matlin were the dramatic jurors, and they awarded Avi Rockwell and focus features A Thousand and One with the top Jury Prize. They also gave Seung Jae Lee the best director prize for The Accidental Getaway Driver and special mentions to Theatre Camp for ensemble cast, as well as Magazine Dreams for creative vision and Maryam cash of ours. The Persian Version won not just the jury screenwriting award named after Waldo salt who wrote Midnight Cowboy, but it also won the Audience Award,
BRIAN the coveted Audience Award.
GEMMA Yeah, shall it Reagan’s Scrapper won the World Cinema Jury Award. And that film follows Aftersun's footsteps for the young father daughter story in which Triangle of Sadness, Balenciaga, H&M, Harrison Dickinson is the father and the next section, which is supposed to highlight the changing generation of filmmakers. Two awards were given to Kokomo City, the Audience Award and the Innovator Award
MIA cycle. Oh, yeah. And there are so many other awards to highlight but Who were your winners? And what does the letterbox community say about these rankings?
GEMMA Well, I looked into this and as much as we can ever rely on the small sample of litter box who either made it to Park City with Brian and Flynn in person, which in itself has to be acknowledged as an inherent privilege or managed to snag some of the online tickets for the virtual experience. We do have some busy insights, bearing in mind that these are largely North American based audience , what you will hear are some insights that Jack’s facts and I discovered from the letterbox data, anyone else can discover this particular fact, as well. The highest rated film that premiered at Sundance was Celine Song’s Past Lives, which currently has a 4.3 out of five star average. That is, Selena is a playwright, this is her directorial debut and it’s already with a 24 Yes, so
MIA here is a quick synopsis. Nora and Hye Sung to deeply connected childhood friends, our rest apart after Nora’s family emigrated from South Korea. 20 years later, they’re reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny and just read the synopsis. I’m already sold and I’m going to weep. Wow, okay. Michaela writes on letterboxed meeting multitudes of people throughout our short time on Earth, us humans have the privilege of loving many people and loving them in phases. We are transient beings with the ability to change and Past Lives reminds us that who we were 12 years ago, is not who we are today.
BRIAN Ah. Mikayla hitting us with the hard truths. i The hard truth is I could not see Past Lives. Many, many people were trying. Because the reviews after it screened, like screened at noon on a Saturday and it was already it captured the entire fest. However, this was not the case. So the reason why this didn’t place with jury awards, it’s not part of the official competition. So a 24 I feel like they were kind of they kind of knew they went in knowing what they had. And the reviews were great. And it was not available online for people to watch virtually. So they get to kind of keep this buzz and people clamoring. So the press screenings were at capacity, people could not get in, I could not get in. So they get to maintain that buzz and it’s going to be clamoring to see it. Once they finally set a release date.
GEMMA Thinking of being really good at picking things Sundance itself, as we’ve heard as really good at picking documentaries. I mean, 17 Oscar winners in the history of Sundance documentaries. So what are we looking at this year? Do we have some more? Oscar potential?
MIA Yes, yes, yes, yes. The highest rated documentary on Letterboxd premiere at Sundance this year, was essentially a 4.0 out of five star tie between 20 Days In Mariupol, capturing the plight of Ukrainian journalists and citizens during the start of the Russian invasion, and Beyond Utopia, which follows North Korean defectors as they attempt to escape to freedom from one of the most oppressive countries on earth. So I did see Beyond Utopia, which is easily my favorite of the festival. I was on the verge of tears the entire runtime. I was weeping by the end and Sundance did not say in their description that it was about North Korea for fear of retribution. So it had initially flew under my radar, but as somebody with North Korean family, I’m super super grateful that the highly rated letterbox reviews alerted me to its important subject matter, and I’m just really gratified to see both of these really brave and incredible feats of filmmaking both earn audience awards [20 Days In Mariupol] for World Documentary and Beyond Utopia for us documentary
BRIAN so the top Letterboxd rated North and South Korea whoa Ryan with
MIA yay okay I’m proud to be a Korean Wow Jack
BRIAN I looked at a map rather I listened to the synopsis and these both sound great I did not get to see either them and I cannot wait to see both of them
GEMMA also speaks to the power of word of mouth, especially when you have to be very very careful about the information that you’re giving out about a film. Another leader box fun fact the most watched listed film during the Sundance period yet to be released and also a hot ticket was Eileen which is currently on 18,000 letterbox watch lists and growing so that one stars Hathaway and Thomas and McKinsey that will absolutely have something to do with it. That’s a banging cast, the sauce novel by Otis and Mushfiq. She's a popular novelist, and it’s directed by Lady Macbeth, William Oldroyd, who gave Florence Pugh her breakout role in that film.
BRIAN Well, I can speak to this one because Eileen is one of the few titles that I was able to catch while I was there, and I can confirm Anne Hathaway is great. It does feel like a Carol for maladjusted types. It does take an unexpected turn. It does take an unexpected turn that you’re either on board with or you’re not so like the reviews are a little divisive. That's not a spoiler, because I do not think anyone will guess where it goes. So but shout out to Ari Wagner, I want to shout her out. Because the colors in this film are just kind of like every room looks like every internal room looks like the character is in hell or a boiler room. And it’s just like, it’s, it’s great cinematography, but you’re gonna want to add a number of these movies that we’re talking about to your watch this because outside of Infinity Pool, which is already in theaters, you can watch it right now if you’re in certain territories, that’s on the most watch lists with 67,000. But many of these titles are going to take a while to trickle out. So you gotta hit that Watch List button.
MIA I also just want to note that the Infinity Pool that is in theaters right now is a different cut than the one that was screened at Sundance and for press. They’re getting the R rated cut, not the NC 17 cut so really about this everyone demands the NC 17 Cut.
GEMMA Something else that happens at Sundance You just reminded me is that often a film will go down fairly well. But might be a bit saggy or might need a bit of tightening up and it will often be reduced. I mean, these are the same festivals everywhere. the TIFF vision of Sound of Metal was quite different from the Sound of Metal that we eventually got to see. So, you know, it’s one of the fun things about being able to go to festivals, you know, being motivated enough to buy tickets to festivals is that you do get a different movie quite often. Something that probably is 100%. And it’s final cut because it is almost perfect is our most watched listed documentary from Sundance, which is *Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie*beautiful play on the title since this is a man who can no longer sit still due to Parkinson’s. It’s made by Davis Guggenheim very much in collaboration with Michael who tells his own story throughout. And there’s this brilliant use of footage from all of his movies and TV shows woven in with dramatizations and the place of archive, it’s very, very clever. It’s obviously made with, you know, a great amount of resources, so it looks good. But really, Parkinson’s is an absolute beast. Michael J Fox is an absolute hero who deserved his recent Oscar commemorative Oscar Honorary Oscar, and so they’re still Brooke Shields ducking this year. It really hit me thinking about all the things we demand of actors beyond the job. I mean, the job really is to embody a character but we just demand so much more of them like we demand. Alexander Skarsgard on the Sundance red carpet with a dark color around his neck. And this is not wonderful, but this is not the job. Anyway, I just yeah, I really did have a bit of a time with some of these dots this year. Whereas like we we and the industry ask a lot of these people to just run the entire publicity machine almost for a movie. Do you want to talk about the other dogs that’s tied for most watchlist Ed’s alongside Michael J. Fox one?
MIA Yes, yes, Gemma it would be my pleasure. So The Disappearance of Shere Hite is tied with still for most watch list ads. I am so thrilled to see that because she is a feminist figure I wasn’t familiar with and I and ice steady this shit, you know. So I am really thrilled to see her legacy disappearing and I will speak on it more in a little bit. But first let’s highlight Joyland, which won an award from our as the highest rated romance of 2022 in our year in review. Joyland premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and has been playing festivals all over the world, including an appearance at the Sundance Film Festival, where Brian, you delivered a trophy to them in person. So let’s have a listen to Simon sodic accepting the award.
Thank you, your guys. This is really special, thank you to the team at Letterboxd for me and our team here and our team everywhere we beat Blanchard we were spread across the world. This is really, really special. We’re all big fans of romances. And it gives us great pleasure to know that the highest rated romance on letterbox of 2022 was actually a romance that involved a trans love story. I think that’s a sign of changing times and good times. And it’s really special to be at the center of something like that. Thank you. Thank you.
BRIAN Yes, it was very, very nice of them to invite us over to their airbnb. That was definitely a highlight of Sundance for me in person. That and meeting Barbara Crampton, which I’ve always wanted to do because we’ve been internet buddies for all kinds of decades. Barbara Crampton is the horror heroine. She says Don’t call me a scream queen. She started Re-Animator and From Beyond, I met her at a house party for Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls. house parties coming in from the cold to extra warm people who need to watch multiple movies a day. I’m very much in my element just like sitting by the campfire with famous people. I should mention that in the little clip that we heard Sam was accepting the joy land award with his co writer Maggie Briggs is producer, a poor guru of Sharon and his co film editor Jasmine Tucci. They all live in different places. But they all went to Columbia film school together and it was a lot of fun to hang out.
MIA Now though, it is our turn to give out some of our awards. Brian, you were there in person, so you get to go first.
BRIAN Quite honestly, everyone on the letterbox crew who did not attend Sundance in person saw at least double the amount of films that Flynn and I saw in person, just due to red carpets, buses, distance between theaters, layers of clothes on and off decision making the need to pop in and eat and all this sustenance and all this care. So I’m just going to let you guys speak first. But I do have a couple I want to point out.
GEMMA Are you saying that film festival life is not glamorous? Brian what
MIA Brian? Wait,
BRIAN it is glamorous. I just said I was sitting at a campfire with Barbara Crampton.
GEMMA So maybe that’s the reason you didn’t see as many movies
BRIAN maybe a little bit. But I did see five movies. I have to award
GEMMA has a lot of movies in a week. You know, some people only manage one. It’s Yep.
BRIAN First, sexiest cast undoubtedly. I don’t know if I even saw 50 movies at Sundance, there would still be ages because holy smokes. This is not a himbo thriller. I’ve talked about himbo thrillers but this is a himbo love triangle. And maybe that needs to be a list on the letterbox. I don’t know if there’s enough himbo love triangles. But this one is Franz Rogowski from Transit. Paddington’s Ben Whishaw and Blue is the Warmest Color is Adele XR Tripolis it is hot.
MIA Yeah, I saw somebody referred to that film as queer French Closer, the Mike Nichols movie and I was instantly sold.
GEMMA Can I throw in? Can I throw in an extra word for ages? And that’s best bike riding, best hauling a bike upstairs and downstairs. Just yeah, just generally the best messy bitch on a bike.
MIA Best messy bitch on a bike that’s incredible.
BRIAN Yeah, this age is gay mess and all of its beautiful, sexy glory. The other word that I’m gonna give it I actually have to it that I do hate cats. I get annoyed when people do this, but I’m guilty of it. We all are guilty of it. I watched Nicole holofcener is new movie You Hurt My Feelings. And the whole time I just want to I immediately want to say okay, let’s get Julia Louis Dreyfus in the Best Actress conversation of 2024 She is so so so very good. They reunited when they worked together before on Enough Said which was the last James scandal Fini performance. And my god Julia Louis Dreyfus is so fantastic in this Mia,
GEMMA What are your awards?
MIA Oh, well, my Grand Jury Prize which is made up of an esteemed jury of myself and my cat goes to Beyond Utopia of course, which I’ve already mentioned. So you know, I already talked about that one. So let’s give another mansion and an honorable one to The Disappearance of Shere Hite which again was also mentioned a little bit but I want to go into more detail. So Cher wrote a 1976 book about female orgasm called the height report, which sparked long overdue discussions on sexuality and pleasure. But the press tours that followed these books were so brutal and misogynistic, like one can only take so much unfounded in bad faith criticism from people who did not even read your work. And so she disappeared. And her Yeah, her legacy didn’t fully disappear but it’s not as well known as it should be. So this is definitely a must watch for my fellow feminists.
GEMMA It’s on my watch list for sure. Anything else? What else what uh, well, I love mayor and bread the cats personal awards is a great well another
The MIA movie that Brad the cat and I really really enjoyed was Cassandro. So I want to give out a Best Actor Award to Guile Garcia Bernal, who’s one of my favorite working actors. My guy Gail plays the titular Cassandro, who’s based on the eponymous gay Lucha Libre wrestler, who utilized his flamboyance on stage to distract his much larger and physically stronger competitors. So specifically Cassandro is in Exotica, which is a Labrador who fights in drag, so it’s so much fun to watch him just like Smile and Agon and eventually win over homophobic crowds just with his campy tots and cheeky antics.
GEMMA Oh, and I love seeing the footage of the real Cassandro on the Sundance red carpet as well. Like he’s just he’s still going strong. This was a fun movie, and I really liked it. It’s gonna be a crowd pleaser, but it’s also beautifully artistic in its aspect ratio, and it’s shallow focus. And yeah, I really enjoyed it.
MIA I and I and I want to give out one more little award for best surprise cameo that goes to in my lane. Obviously absolutely not going to spoil it. So all I’ll say is it made my English romcom obsessed heart sore, I straight up squawked in delight at my television mate.
GEMMA I was right there with you. The moment I saw on the screen that I was screaming, I was screaming, I was so excited. This is gonna bring so much joy to so many people. And, you know, I really, I really hope and pray because Rye Lane, which is a romcom set in South London, is kind of over a single day and night and then a little bit longer than that. It’s going to come out in March, on Hulu and in UK theaters. And I just really hope between now and then that nobody spoils the fact that is in it for a few seconds. But we do have an interview coming with the director who talks a bit about the details of getting into the scene. And we will run that after enough people have seen it. Like that’s how fun it is. So it’s a good one. It’s a good one that was gonna be my award too. But I do have another award for Ray lane. Best Use of the pretend couple romcom trope. Actually this use of so many romcom tropes and a fresh and interesting way. I just think right lane is gonna make so many people happy and that people who rewatch Richard Curtis romcoms in spite of themselves Guilty as charged guilty guilty guilty man, but have been hungering for so much more from the genre. They’re gonna love it. It’s just so inclusive and fresh and coal has an award for Best Leading Role for the scoot stabbed messes. And that is Scoot McNairy's performance is a solo dead and aids era San Francisco in Fairyland, which I think is a beautiful film, it adds to the ongoing conversation about the many people we lost during the AIDS crisis. And yeah, it’s gonna go down really well, but it’s just so lovely to see skirt and a leading role and he really carries it
BRIAN And produced by Sofia Coppola. Oh, yeah. Wow.
GEMMA because it was directed by Sofia’s longtime unit stills photographer and friend, and this is his first feature debut film.
MIA Sofia Coppola is famously a gay ally, who re when during The Beguiled press tour, she said she cast Colin Farrell because she wanted somebody that gay men could also fantasize about, she’s always thinking of the gay male gaze and I love her for that.
GEMMA As as Andrew Durham, her friend who directed this film theory land and has done such a lovely job with skirts and has many boyfriends. And a final shout out to the black and white cinematography and mummy water, which earned Lila’s SUAREZ A World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for her camera work, but I would like to give this film two additional awards for best hand to hand combat between badass women and the men who are threatening to destroy the village. Absolutely Mami Wata as a film to hang in till the end on and also for the best, best, best hair and makeup and Me Sundance film this year and possibly in a film coming out this year, friends for Gaskey may have the see through mesh shirt, but mummy water had the makeup in here category on luck.
MIA Well thank you both and thank you for that brilliant segue Gemma because speaking of makeup and hair, it is time to go behind the curtain. This week we’re taking a look at hair and makeup, a category for which there has only been an Academy Award since 1981. Can you believe that? It’s nuts. It’s nuts. As we mentioned last week, the Oscar nominees for this year’s Academy Awards in this category are largely about prosthetics and special effects like the blood and guts and All Quiet on the Western Front and the three fat suits in The Whale and The Batman and Elvis.
GEMMA You’re saying as we mentioned to you, but you’re being too polite. i It’s true. I had an absolute rant about these fixes last week. And I want to be really clear. I’m not saying that prosthetic makeup work in those three films isn’t incredibly good. And awards worthy. It’s just that it’s just so we’re gonna go on a rant again, please stop me being dismayed to reward work. That’s the result of an industry that’s so economically focused on Star casting that they would rather fit Tom Hanks than give the opportunity to someone else. That’s that red bow. So I know Brian, you’re an insider, but I did some insider research to try and get my head around this a little bit more. Fun fact, that turns out the current makeup Governors of the makeup artists and hairstylists guild, our prosthetics makeup mean. So it you know means that the girls' Oscar nominations will often lean towards prosthetics, but it’s an incredibly tricky category to award when all the workers are so vastly different. And, you know, like, like they do with performance like they do with production design, they will often lean towards the most obvious work, which is often the effects work, I’m guessing.
MIA Oh, yeah, that is absolutely correct. So when we decided to focus on this category this week, we wanted to talk to a couple of makeup and hair artists who have been plugging away in both prosthetic and so called Beauty work for years now. And it occurred to us that who better to shoulder tap for insights into this craft than the team behind the film that is literally named after the hair of its character. That would be Blonde, starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe who has just received her first Oscar nomination in a Leading Role for her work.
BRIAN And while the craft team missed out on an Oscar nom for their work on Ana, they are being recognized by their own guild the Hollywood makeup artists and hair stylists guild, for best period and or character hairstyling for Jamie Lee Macintosh and best period and or character makeup for Tina racer Kerwin Jamie Lee is also on the team of Damien Chazelle is Babylon, which has also been nominated in the Guild Awards, but also not nominated at the Oscars. And Babylon is one of the internet’s agreed biggest Oscars stubs from 2022 There are three noms but people really wanted to see that place in a lot more places.
GEMMA The Oscars may have snapped Blonde and Babylon, but this show is not me. You jumped on the line with Jamie Lee and Tina and I actually recused myself from this chat because once upon a time I used to trade gossip for haircuts with Jamie Lee. It is true. She’s a small town New Zealand girl who used to work in a coastal salon doing farmer’s wives here. And then she moved on to Wellington to begin applying here to Hobbit dwarves. And now she’s in Prague with Ana de Armas again on a new film. She has come a long way and I’m excited to hear your chat
MIA Hello, you two. Thank you so so much for ing me and on Best in Show and talking awards and Blonde and Babylon and all these amazing films. Welcome.
JAIME LEIGH Thank you.
TINA We just returned from Prague. So yeah. Oh, and
MIA Can you tell me what you were working on over there?
JAIME LEIGH Ballerina, it’s a John Wick spin off with Ana de Armas.
MIA Yes. I know it’s very under wraps. Is there anything you can tell me about her look?
JAIME LEIGH Very different to blonde.
TINA Yes.
MIA As in she’s brunette, or?
TINA She’s part of the John Wick family. So she looks cool.
MIA Oh, yeah. I mean, she always does. So Jamie Lee, you feature in this big story we just published in a journal that’s all about movie hair and wigs and your fave wig maker Rob Pickens is in there. And he talks about how there are no awards for wig makers yet. So pretend I am the president of the Academy and can you tell me why wig makers deserve recognition?
JAIME LEIGH Oh, because I’d be lost without them. I mean, they're part of what is creating the entire look. I mean, when I have submitted for awards. I’ve tried to see if I can put Rob Pickens on the ticket. And for whatever reason, all the roles that just always the answer ends up being No. So yeah, I think they’re a vital part of what we do.
TINA Part of it is that they don’t give awards to anybody that’s not on set or more actively on set. So there’s a lot of, you know, like, affects people, sometimes if they make kind of something for you, but they don’t apply it, they don’t get included. But there’s a whole lot of people not included in awards like props, people aren’t included, stunts aren’t included, the expense is on their way to be. But so there’s a lot of hard working people on a crew that don’t get recognition. And it’s, it’s, I feel terrible for them. So there are some of our biggest cheerleaders all servicemen, that’s, you know,
MIA That’s nice. Yeah, there's just so, so, so much work involved with this profession, and you have to do so much research as well. So I kind of want to dig into all this research you did for both Jamie Lee for Babylon, and then both of you for Blonde. So in regards to both films, and both time periods. What are some fun facts that you learned from the research that you wish more people knew about these time periods.
JAIME LEIGH And I think for Blonde, Andrew Dominic, the director had already, I mean, it’s been 10 years, putting this all together. So his research that he had already gathered, for us to start with, was huge. So that was a really good starting point. And then, of course, we had the films that we could watch with Marilyn. It was awesome to be able to see all those images and movements. And I mean, there’s a lot I mean, she, you know, was at 1.1 of the most photographed women in the world. So it’s a lot to digest and, and look at, but to go into what Tina was saying, some of the looks that we were creating in the film, more than at home, Norma Jean type of locks, there may be isn’t so many photographs of that. So it’s kind of using a little bit of your own processes and thoughts of how this would kind of just live naturally without being done as such, to speak on Babylon. That was, I think that was a research period of time, then I’ve never actually had so long to research a film because I came on over a year before it started shooting. And I don’t think I’ve ever kind of dive so deep into research before because of the vision of war Damian head of not wanting to see your everyday cliche, 20s hairstyle. So it was instead of just scratching that surface of what you normally think the 20s styles were, it was diving as deep as humanly possible into their world to find everything and anything that we maybe haven’t seen before and use that reference instead.
MIA I was actually just going to ask about that. Because you’ve said before that, you know, Damien didn’t want to see all these women with short finger waved hair, and you were looking for hairstyles that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see in the 20s. But that still wasn't anachronistic. So what were some of your sources? Like? How did you go about finding all these unconventional historical images for inspiration?
JAIME LEIGH It was everything from books to actually Damien sending a lot of links to documentaries and actual silent films, we have a great reference book of mug shots from the time. So seeing different classes of people, different worlds, being arrested and having their mug shots taken. So that was quite interesting. It’s a fantastic reference book. I mean, I was reaching out to friends and colleagues that I know collect images of hairstyles and just like can you just send me all your 20 stuff that is weird and wacky or look super contemporary? Like you wouldn’t think it was 20s just that type of thing. So I was just as reaching for anything I could find
MIA And how did it feel when you first saw a transformed Maryland like all of your work finally starting to pay off? Can you talk about how that felt? For both of you?
JAIME LEIGH I don’t know. I don’t even get time to think about it too much. As you know, that was so insanely rushed. But I think because we did everything in sections right Tina first we were just trying to figure out covering on as natural back here so it was testing and practicing with that and at that point I didn’t have a completed wig and things like that and then it was Tina working out the makeup and then the wigs were finally finished there was all these bits and pieces but then finally when we did it was just like I think that thought of like maybe we can do this. Yeah, that’s like I think it’s working.
TINA Yeah, it was just sort of baby steps along the way like she said I just was okay we Okay, covering note the hair and then you know, minimizing and bleaching the brows and getting the wig you know And we started sort of with her main look. And then once we figured if we could get that main, you know, look that that not only was going to be in the film of us, but also maybe one of the most iconic, then we could sort of from there launch into when she was more platinum and a little bit older. And then when she was really, really young, and she had, you know, I guess brunette and then sort of that Golden Dawn, I mean, so So we sort of hit the middle and then went from there. But it was just tiny little moments. But I do a moment that we put it on, kind of pulled it all together. Pretty close, not perfect, but pretty close. And it was I think Ana was the most emotional, because she also knew the responsibility that she had. And so it was sort of like, oh, okay, I think we’re gonna we will be I think we’ll be okay. But it was fleeting, and then we just kept running.
MIA And how did you balance Maryland’s look with honors as in, like, how did you go about finding Marilyn, within Ana and not just doing like, pure recreation, but kind of marrying the two is one
TINA Of the things that Andrew Dominic, the director said, pretty early on in the process that I can’t just put Maryland’s makeup on and that I have to find Ana within it. So it was just small, little incremental things of how many lashes and where to place them to place them in high how, you know, a little higher or a little lower and contouring or face, you know, one way when it’s she’s younger, and one way when she’s older, and just just so minimal the change. And, and then of course the wigs were just helped launch everything into, you know, the next level. So it was just for me, it was small, little incremental, you know, tiny little changes to do. And then when the weight came on, you’re like, Oh, well, I think we’ve gotten pretty close here. You know, so it was in you know, it’s, it’s hard to describe it, because it’s just so small, yeah, changes that. But they but they were they made a difference, you know, where her eyes were conquered where cheeks were Condor, and where her lashes were placed. And they worked much better in some places than others. And so it just was a little, you know, it was a discovery every day.
JAIME LEIGH I think in that process, too. It’s interesting that Tina was every day doing that makeup with what appeared to be a bald honor. So it’s just I think these are beautiful makeups on a woman that’s sitting in a chair that appears when you look in the mirror to have no hair. So it’s quite interesting that she would go through that whole process and work it out before the hair even went on. So pretty cool.
MIA Andrew has said before that there were certain camera angles that made her look a little more like Marilyn and I was wondering if you could speak about applying makeup and hairstyling for the camera, rather than you know, just like the bare human eye.
TINA Well, that’s our goal always is to, to get it right for the camera. And certainly for me especially because some things were black and white and some were in color. They didn’t always look exactly right to the naked eye. But when they got in front of the camera, with the beautiful lighting from Chase Irvin, they cinematographer enhanced and elevated everything, plus the costumes from Jennifer Johnson, these, you know, the, the entire process put together made everybody’s work better. But it’s, it’s, you know, your goal is to always aim to get it right on the camera. And certainly there was Lux that we didn’t love in the trailer, but we loved when they got on camera. So and that’s just there’s a part of that where you just sort of have to, you know, cross your fingers and hope it's going to turn out that way.
MIA Thank you for bringing up costuming. So I was just going to ask, I mean, it’s such a collaboration between hair and makeup and costume to get everything right. And I was wondering if you could speak about collaborating with the costume department, Jennifer,
JAIME LEIGH Jennifer, I mean, she’s insane. It’s crazy what she managed to pull together with what she had and the time was insane. She was so important to me at the very beginning because she had been on for a lot longer before we started and she was kind of helping me, I guess translating a lot of what Andrew was throwing at me very quickly. So we started our relationship pretty strongly and Matt just tried to work everything out. decipher what Andrew was wanting. Exactly. And then and then goodness Wow. Once we started shooting, it was very rare that we would have too much time to speak to each other because it was just that she was crazy busy. We were constantly running around like headless chickens. And but we were always just as in so much war when we would get to see it, and Anna would finally have a costume on and you’d just be like, yes, that came together. Like, it’s always the icing on the cake, because we will, you know, get out already in the trailer, here, our makeup and she’s still wearing her own clothes. But it’s not until we see her and the full costume. And it’s just like, that’s the finished picture.
TINA And Jennifer had to recreate costumes. In modern day with techniques that you can’t, they don’t even use anymore, like the pleading of the white dress, to find someone who still has the skill. And that the technique to be able to do that in itself was monumental in the amount of fabric that goes into that. So a lot of the things she’s recreating, she had to use modern techniques to do it. And then just fine those, you know, old timers that were still around to actually create some of this. Jennifer and I had worked together before so we had a quick hello, how are you? Good to see you. Okay, what are we doing? And it was just one of those, you know, jump right in. But she brought everything together so beautifully. And she was a terrific collaborator for us. She was always there to give us any information or insight that she had. So it was, you know, it’s great when there’s a team of people that are all trying to each other and get through the process, do the best they can.
MIA Well, it’s paid off. Finally, with this awards recognition, which is exciting. It’s very cool. I saw Ana de Armas. She just posted an Instagram picture of you three, saying you got to share the Golden Globes nomination news together. That’s so exciting. Just congratulations. Yes, I see. We’re all together.
TINA It was fun to be all back together anyway, but also to have it all happen when all this great news is coming out was particularly, you know, fun. We’d be texting and emailing anybody to each other anyway, we weren’t together. So
JAIME LEIGH it’s very colos exciting to hear her squeal on set when she heard the news. You Yeah, it was announced. It was announced on site. So very exciting.
MIA If you want to hear more about this part of the business, Jamie Lee McIntosh has her own podcast called The Last Lux, where she speaks with various makeup and hairstyle artists in the film and television industry. There is a link in the Episode Notes and I highly recommend it.
GEMMA And also if you want to read that story that Mia mentioned all about the movie here and what it takes to get a perfect wig that is in the journal. The link is also in our episode notes. And I guarantee that once you read it, you’ll never look at a bad work again without empathy for its hard working over scheduled and under budgeted maker.
MIA Yes. So every award ceremony has that moment after the show when you climb into that limousine. take a detour through the McDonald’s drive thru and retired US somebody’s poolside to kick back with burgers and milkshakes and a gummy or three to debrief on the night and play a few party games. And so here we are at the Best in Show after party. Gemma Brian, we have played a few rounds of heart rate this week as the Oscars race heats up. We are doing something a little bit different. It’s a big five watch party. Whoo. Whoo. And now everyone listening at home also has to woo so I’ll wait for you to woo Okay, thank you. Last week we agreed to all watch Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night, the 1934 pre code screwball rom com, which was the first film to win the Big Five, the Oscars for Best Picture director, actor, actress and adapted screenplay, which it did at the seventh Academy Awards.
BRIAN So best picture went to Frank Capra and Harry Cohn, Best Director also to Capra actor Clark Gable, actress Claudette Colbert, and best adaptation, Robert Riskin.
MIA So let’s do a lightning round of thoughts on the film before we dive into some fun facts and a little quiz. He and Gemma were out on the street as this may have been your first time ever watching It Happened One Night so what are your thoughts?
GEMMA It did happen? It Happened One Night that I sat down and watch this and I knew you’re gonna ask me this and I only have a garbled thoughts which consists of four words clack gables shirtless chest
MIA Oh, Oh my god, I’m speechless. Speechless
GEMMA this pre code, this pre code shit is crazy. I can see why the MPAA were like Let’s shut this shirtless shit down. Basically that’s all I had to say and also that it was fascinating to me to see that negging has been a rom com trope since movies began. Honestly cat gables character is he’s just he’s the master of negging. And yeah, he’s just pulling her down any chance he can get and yet that shirtless chest and I’ll get you every time
MIA that’s one of the many many tropes that this film kind of pioneered. That’s what’s so fascinating for me about this one is that it just influenced so many of the genre like we talked about Bringing Up Baby a lot and very rightfully so, as one of the first of the one but
GEMMA because that was my fav I love it.
MIA I love that one you
GEMMA got me to like the screwball nature of it. I think that attracts me and there is some screwball in this but it’s yeah, it’s Bringing Up Baby has always been just kind of thrown at us as the archetypal romcom. Right. But I guess it has taken me a long time to come around to it happening. One I love.
BRIAN Well, actually, if we’re, if we’re talking pre code rom coms my favorite. I’m just going to toss this back to if anyone watched ages and they’re like, I need to see another throttle. I 1933’s Design for Living. Amazing,
GEMMA has so many things going on the watch list right now. Me you it sounds like you’re the It Happened One Night, the Medicaid expert. Just Just take a deep on why this works so well. Because we’ve got a lot of people listening who also watched It Happened One Night, over the past week, because we said we’re going to talk about it.
MIA It’s true. It’s true. It’s true. So, I mean, well, the thing that I most want to talk about is just how many tropes are crammed in here. I know we just kind of touched on that a little bit. But at the time, you know, these were not tropes. Like nobody was kind of tired of them, you know? Like they’re, they’re just that that hitchhiking scene has been parodied and recreated so many times and that enemies to lovers dynamic is so rampant in romance as well. So I think that that is the most influential aspect of this film. It’s just so influential. Actually,
BRIAN someone that influenced is cuz I love this one. I saw Francis Ford Coppola as Tucker the man and his dream when Joan Joan Allen hitches a ride with some leg, it’s for husband, it’s very cute, but I didn’t realize I’d seen this. I'd seen that happen one night, but it had been about 20 years. And it was an exact recreation of what Claudette Colbert does to get a ride after Clark Gable with all his bluster and all is all is talking just cannot cannot get it done. And she shows them how to do it.
GEMMA So it’s probably a good time for those who didn’t get around to watching it yet to say, very, very basically, we’ve got Claudette cobia as a young woman who has a very rich but very overbearing father and she’s just trying to get away from him. And you know, marry someone else and start a new life. And she’s she’s gone and married some amazing pilot who’s way too old for her film starts with her basically diving off her father’s boat because he’s kidnapped her to get her away from this new broom, dives off his boat swims to Florida and then has to work her way back to New York and with no money, and no smarts because she’s a little rich girl, right? And Clark Gable is a newspaperman who realizes that he’s got the story of his life on his hands, and doesn’t tell her who he is, at least not at first, and travels with her to try and get her back to New York. So it’s essentially a road movie. Right? So we’ve got so many tropes in here, we’ve got the road movie. It’s a road buddy movie, because even though the enemies are two lovers, they’re also buddies on the road working against anyone else who’s trying to get in their way. They have to and then free code, spend the night and motel room
MIA to put up that sheet. So uncouth. Yes. Oh, and you have the journalist trope. What did you know in rom coms? There’s like always one of them is like some sort of journalist because it’s a sexy job.
GEMMA Yep. It's a sexy job. As we know, the three of us know, that’s why we’re doing this podcast. It’s the sixth appeal.
MIA The only reason to do journalism, which
BRIAN I mean, actually in the sex appeal, because I actually love this era of Frank Capra, and I kind of wish like film studies around this era, and particularly for this director, they always start with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or It’s A Wonderful Life and he always gets lumped into sentimentality, but he made some sexy stuff pre code this with the sheet and In between, which is funny because the Hays Code made it so that people had to sleep in opposite beds which is what they’re doing here but it’s still sexy because because like they they undress in between the sheet and they actually are like confessing things while they can’t see each other but we can see them another rushing me.
GEMMA Are you talking about this?
BRIAN Well I also have a mustache like Mr. Clark gables. Maybe that’s part of the blush there. I did, the way that we’re the way that you were talking about the road movie. A part of it. I did want to highlight a review on letterbox from Jessica Carr. The 1930s were so fun for women that Ellie could have chosen a large man that fell asleep on her on the bus and allowed a man that couldn’t stop hitting her on the bus. Or a handsome man she met on the bus that insults her every time she opens her mouth. She shows the handsome insulting man but it turns out he’s really quite sweet to his core. Heart. Gable has the ability to say the meanest things and still be so charming.
GEMMA It’s so true. He is an absolute ratbag and you’re going but I love you and you anyway. Um, yeah, I asked Jack to pull some facts on this because I was really fascinated by I guess we should talk about this a little bit about the whole concept of the big five. So what a year four. These are the seven Academy Awards. So we know, it’s only a few years into movie history. But it happened when night comes along and sweeps picture director actor actress adaptation, what we know interestingly, in speaking of cat Gable having the ability to say the meanest things and still be so charming, this was his only Oscar, cat Gable, Lee Clark Gable. And this hilarious very light romcom is what he was asked for. So that’s you know, that's one fun fact about that year. What else have you got? Brian, our insider who was there at the 1937 Academy Awards, reporting for the red carpet.
BRIAN No, it actually looks while this film is amazing, and I actually kind of like a sweep, even though that’s maybe counterintuitive. I think it’s kind of fun when the industry gets behind one movie, but there are some there are some good movies in 1934 that were nominated, that were also about a couple and screwball and hugely influential, and I’m speaking mostly of The Thin Man, which was which was up for actor, but not actress, which is crazy because Myrna Loy is amazing in that movie, but William Powell was also nominated another mustachioed fast talker.
GEMMA Oh, that’s interesting. That brings me to an interesting Jack’s fetch because I need two other films of one, these so called Big Five. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in The Silence of the Lambs, those other two famous rom coms, but no, so So jet back suggests that it’s better to maybe look at the big four, which is picture director screenplay and either actor or actress, which gives 23 films out of 94 best pictures so far to one of the big four. But then when you break that down, you have 19 Best Actor winners and seven best actual actress winners. So it really is, I think, in the context of this film about that pairing and about the chemistry and the electricity. I mean, the, you know, the tagline on the poster about Clark Gable, and Claudette Cobia, who were each a mess of stars in their own right and making the move from Silent to talkies is together for the first time. So this I mean, we went there and 34 but it was kind of a big deal. And when you look at the other films that have won both leading acting Oscars, you do get a few more pilots of the lens. Of course, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but you get As Good As It Gets Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, you get On Golden Pond, Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn. You get Jon Voight and Jane Fonda and Coming Home in the you know, the less romcom romantic drama category. You get Peter Finch in Faye Dunaway, who like those are just powerhouse performances in and of themselves,
MIA I guess. Yes. Where? Yes, I know we’re established Network heads on this guy.
GEMMA But you know, it’s really only romance films, isn’t it? Where the leads are actually co leads,
BRIAN Brian. Yeah, I mean, As Good As It Gets, Coming Home, On Golden Pond, and It Happened One Night. I mean, a lot of people like to do some fanfic around Clarice and Clarice and Hannibal Lecter for The Silence of the Lambs. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They they. Where have you been? Jim? They’ve been shipped for so long. word that is part of the reason why the sequel Hannibal, the sequel and the movie exists because like they even though Jodie Foster did not come back it is about like trying to get them back in the same room together. It takes Ray Liotta as the brains to do that. Sorry. Let’s get back to let’s get back to actual romance not just like you guys sicko romances, which is like
GEMMA Okay, speaking of romance, speaking of romance and throttles, as we’ve mentioned many times, because there are three of us. I had a little fun, and I put together a little quiz for you. Do you want to play my little game called? It happened? One quiz.
MIA Okay, yes, Gemma, I’m so proud of my little jigsaw apprentice look at her coming up with her own games I would love to
GEMMA, the current Oscar nominee and previous winner, bought the Oscar. The only Oscar that Clark Gable ever won for this film in an auction and for bonus points, whereas their Oscar now Do either of you know or want to take a guess? I’ve given you a couple of clues their current Oscar nominee and previous winner
MIA Wait is it Steven Spielberg?
GEMMA Yes me what?
MIA I just started thinking about the other like the non acting nominees Yeah, Spielberg Spielberg.
GEMMA You are correct. Okay. So this is like this is a whole lot of fun storytelling, but here we go. Gable won that one Oscar. A kid said something along the lines of oh, hey, Mr. Gable. That statue is really pretty. And Clark Gable said to the child, that it’s the winning of the statue that mattered. Not the statue itself gave the kid the statue, whereupon Clark gables, only Oscar made its way through the world and ended up somewhere and ended up being auctioned. Steven Spielberg anonymously bought it in 1996 to protect it from being further exploited commercially. And he gave it back to the academy and said that I can think of no better sanctuary for gables than the Oscar than the Motion Picture Academy. All right. How is It Happened One Night connected to current Oscar nominee and previous winner. Cate Blanchett.
MIA Yeah, she played Katharine Hepburn Oh, you have nothing to do. Oh, yeah. Oh my god close.
GEMMA You’re getting close. Not Katharine Hepburn but a character also called Kate Kate Wheeler. You really need to know your Cate Blanchett filmography; it's going to be quite hard. I’m going to put you out of your misery 2001 film Bandits. Ah. Bruce Willis’s character.
MIA It’s an Oregon I just want to say that’s an Oregon film. That is an Oregon legendary film. Okay, continue to go.
GEMMA So if you’ve seen Bandits, you may that Bruce Willis’s character uses the blanket partition in the motel room trick. Out of respect for Cate Blanchett characters privacy, saying that he saw some people do the same thing in an old movie. Oh, that old movie being It Happened One Night. Okay, final question. And I’m really sorry to bring up Sex and the City 2.
MIA I mean, well, okay, that is different once you add the two on there
GEMMA Yeah, I’m really sorry to bring up Sex and the City. How Sex and the City 2, and It Happened One Night connected. And here’s a clue Mia, you already mentioned that there are so many ways in popular culture that " It Happened One Night" has been referenced by other filmmakers.
MIA I don’t even need the clue. I know that I just watched Sex and the City 2 recently. Unfortunately, I know Carrie Bradshaw is watching it on TV in bed. And then she internalizes it. And then later on when for some reason they’re in like the Middle East for stuff do not put the Sex and the City Girl. He’s in the Middle East. Why would you ever do that? And then once she’s there, oh my god. It’s so humiliating. They’re all like burkas. And to get a taxi cab. Carrie Bradshaw, like, pulls up the burqa and shows off her ankle and that gets so they can go to the airport. It’s humiliating. It’s just humiliating.
GEMMA It’s a low moment in Motion Picture history.
BRIAN I did. I did. I did think it was taxi related. So
GEMMA Okay. That’s it. That’s my little quiz. Thank you for playing along and good And I’m sorry to have brought Sex and the City 2 and a half and one night party but to be fair, I didn’t do it first.
MIA No and it’s it’s it’s a it’s part of the plot like it moves the plot forward. It’s intrinsic to the story that I'm just laughing. Oh, what a picture.
GEMMA But what an amazing picture. I loved it. Thank you for all watching it with ****us this week.
BRIAN It Happened One Night. That is the lovely year.
MIA Next week, we will all be watching Sex and the City 2. No, no, no, I’m kidding. What? What are we actually watching next week?
BRIAN Because we haven’t had enough. Let’s go back to Park City in the comfort of our homes. That’s my idea. Anyway, is everyone on board with that? Let’s do it. So I suggest let’s watch the first film to win the Grand Jury Prize out of Sundance way back in 1984. That is Marissa Silver’s Old Enough it’s on to be it’s on prime. Mia gives us that logline.
MIA First off, we love to be I am so grateful for to be it has all these like obscure films that are free like why
GEMMA would we be without to be no
MIA but here's the logline. The 12 years old well bred Lonnie meets the impudent Karen on the street. They spend some time together and Karen teaches Lonnie some of her favorite occupations like makeup, shoplifting, skipping school and lying to the parents about it. But Karen also learns honesty from Lonnie. Old Enough is a film about social differences. And growing up.
GEMMA I’m looking forward to this so much. Okay, and finally, it is time for player of the season. Do we have any nominations for Best person and Hollywood this week? Who is shifting the cultural and social good dial?
MIA Oh, well, you know, let’s get wholesome with a little double dip into our own world. So this was earlier in the month ittedly all knows. But Kate Winslet gave confidence to a young journalist during Avatar: The Way of Water interviews.
[clip of Kate Winslet’s interview plays]
It’s my first time.
This is your first time?
Yeah.
Okay. Well, guess what? Let me do this interview. Yeah, it’s going to be the most amazing interview ever. Okay. And you know why? Because we’ve decided that it is going to be so we’ve decided on the right menu. This is going to be a really fantastic interview. Okay, you can ask me anything that you want. And you don’t have to be scared. Everything’s gonna be amazing. Okay, okay. You got this?
Yeah.
Okay. Let’s do it.
GEMMA Can you imagine being her? I just,
MIA I really couldn’t use that for my introverted press junketing earlier this year. Oh, man, totally.
GEMMA Also, Steven Spielberg does something similar where you know that Q and A’s and theaters can be incredibly intimidating, full of, you know, young dudes with, with thick scripts, hoping to get them into the hands of whoever it is on stage and having monologues Yeah. Steven Spielberg, who’s obviously been at this game for a while, was doing a fireman’s q & a. And sorry, young, just a young really, really young man in the front row with his hand politely pointed to him. And this happened.
You had your hand? Yeah.
What I love about your film is the great connection with your mom. I love my mom
and you know something. I love my mom so much.
GEMMA I love my mom too.
BRIAN Yes, shout out mom’s Shut up. Mom.
MIA This is a pro-mom podcast. We share which actor gave us reassuring words. When we started doing the q & a. As I mentioned, we could if there’s time let’s try it. I’m very new to the junket world. As I mentioned, I only started last year in April because y’all threw me in the deep end with an interview with Ania Taylor Joy and it was really nice because she thanked me for pronouncing her name correctly. It's a Yeah, to be clear and Taylor joy at the start of our chat for The Northman and that that soothes my nerves and I was like, okay, okay, we’re on a page run the good run the same page. It was very sweet. Shout out Andy Taylor, Joy. You’re my player of the season.
GEMMA Oh, I love that. Brian. You’ve done so many red carpets. I don’t imagine anyone would ever rattle You
BRIAN Well my very first junket, it was part of rotations and rotations is where you talk to everybody in the cast and you spend a whole day and you go around all the hotel rooms. My first one, I totally bombed. It was Ansel Elgort. It was so bad I threw the footage in the trash can. This was back when they gave you the physical files for everything, instead of being sent a link. This is for Divergent, by the way. So my next set of interviews after I was so flustered was Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn. And they were so nice. They complimented every question. Ashley Judd called me thoughtful, and they’d made me feel right at home. And then I could feel like, you know, I could do this, whereas before, I didn’t feel like it just like five minutes prior. And as a young boy that was bedazzled by Heat, Ashley Judd, and scared completely shitless by what happens to Goldwyn and Ghost. That was an amazing group of people to get that confidence from Gemma. Yeah, what about you? You’ve got the radio world, you’ve also got the movie world. Yeah, I
GEMMA started all of this interviewing shenanigans, way, way, way back way back at college radio. And we had a lot of people come through who definitely liked us, we were kind of known to be the wacky red student radio kids who ask really stupid questions. And David Wynnum, the Australian actor who was in most of bears, lemons films, was coming through with Gordon Graham’s Ozzie drama, The Boys from 1998, which is incredibly violent. And he is the worst character. He’s an absolute psychopath, like, so I’m watching this movie. And then I’m doing what little research I can because we didn’t have the internet back then. I don’t know if you life before the internet. But we really weren’t able to research beyond what we know, we’re given by publicists, and one of the lines and the press note said, David Wynnum, has been voted the sexiest man in Australia. And I was like, I’ve watched this film, he’s a total psychopath. I’m really nervous to meet him. Because, you know, he’s whatever. And then, like, the 60s man in Australia, and I just kind of garbled this question about, like, how do you what do you have to do to become a sexiest man in Australia, and then went bright red, and he was amazing. He laughed his head off. He didn’t realize I was asking it out of nerves. He thought it was a very funny, very dry question. And he turned his answer into a really deep conversation about being perceived and about fantasy versus reality. And it was all because he’d been on a TV show as davidann Some like a hot kind of diver up in the Gold Coast anyway, in case you’re wondering, then it just reassured me that sometimes stupid questions are the best questions, and they’re actors of people too.
[theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
MIA Thanks so much for listening to Best in Show, a limited awards season series brought to you by The Letterboxd Show. We would love for you to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts because well it makes us happy but more importantly, it spreads the word.
GEMMA You can follow all of us and our HQ page and the Oscars and the BAFTAs and Sundance on Letterboxd using the links in our episode notes. Thanks to our crew: Jack as always for the facts, Slim for making us sound amazing, Sophie for the episode transcript, Letterboxd member Trent Walton for the music and Brian for producing us and of course to you, for listening.
BRIAN Thank you very much. You’ll have to forgive me, my voice is really short. But a writer is only as good as the people that he works with. So thank you, Gemma and Mia. Obviously before inserting my cohort's name, that was Michael Arndt winning Best Original Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine keeping it all Sundance related Best in Show. Best in Show is a Tape Deck production.
[Tapdeck bumper plays] This is a Tape Deck podcast.